Fun photo shoot for Under Cover!

In the mind of a photographer, there is no better situation than when the subject has a much researched and thought out idea or concept.

I was able to experience such a couple weeks ago with some awesome Christian guys that knew exactly what they wanted to do and it turned out really cool!

Before I met the guys to go on the shoot, they told me that their album title was "Lost" and they wanted to use the idea of a man lost in the desert. Well, they mentioned the sand dunes of Little Sahara and also Red Rock Canyon. Both of which are a pretty good drive from Yukon... So, I remembered a little place north of Piedmont, OK that I thought would be good. That's where we ended up going for the cover shot and then we shot some promo stuff in town.

I think the idea turned out looking pretty sweet! Here is the shot that I think will look super awesome on the cover...


I believe this definitely captures the idea of being lost. Here are some more photos from the shoot!

Variance Magazine

It has been a crazy first month with the release of Variance Magazine.

We have seen an amazing response from our viewers and the second issue should be even better!

I am probably going to start up another account that is solely for Variance stuff, so look for that soon!

One last thing: I updated the magazine file and added some new bells and whistles. Just a hint - try hovering the mouse over some of the CD and book cover images. ;)

Open publication - Free publishing - More wakey wakey

My Life Under Construction...

Cones, cones, rough roads, and more cones...

Ever since Laura and I got married, the road outside our neighborhood has been under construction. That was back in August... We're talking 9 months people!

Why am I making a big deal out of this? There are two main reasons...

1] People have a hard time finding our house... The simplest ways to get to it are blocked off, so I have to talk to people on the phone and guide them in to our neighborhood... And sometimes even THAT doesn't help. haha

2] To get to the places that we need to go to get stuff, we have to go WAY out of our way... I will post some screen shots below to show what I mean. Walmart is pretty much a straight shot from our house down Vandament Ave. Well, Vandament has been closed off since August... So... Yeah. I think the city of Yukon should give us money to compensate us for all the gas we've used driving out of our way to get places...

This is how a normal trip with no construction should look. Appr. 2.5 miles


This is our first alternate via main street. Appr. 3 miles, but takes a lot longer due to so many stop lights...


This is our 2nd alternate. Looks like a really long trip, but it actually takes around the same amount of time as our first alternate. Appr. 5 miles

YUKON - YOU OWE US!!

Now, I've said all that to say this: THEY FINALLY OPENED VANDAMENT TODAY!

BOUT TIME!!

Album trailer-ing!!

Bon journo! I have posted several things on here about photography and album cover design, but nothing much about album trailer design... I intend to correct that short fall! haha

So, I don't really know if many people know about album trailers, but to give you the sum-up, it's basically a commercial for the album in anticipation of and upon its release. Album trailers have been playing on the music channels such as MTV, MTV2, VH1, FUSE, CMT, and GAC for years.

I have always had an interest in these but always felt that this sort of thing was out of reach for someone like me and I would never get the opportunity... Well, it just so happens that I ended up getting a job at the most awesome company ever that just so happens to have a record label. They didn't offer album trailers at first, but at the beginning of 2010, we were able to start designing these for our music artists.

I have done my research, watching tutorials, trailers from other record labels, etc. Along with help from my good friend Chris, I have been able to get into a pretty sweet groove and improving with each trailer I make!

I say that to say this: I have had the opportunity of a lifetime! I designed a trailer for a really awesome band out of California called Hands Like Glass! They are a great band with a great future ahead of them! I had a blast working on this trailer!

To see the trailer, clink on this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ok_r5uEQZcE

To listen to more from Hands Like Glass, check out their Myspace here: http://www.myspace.com/handslikeglass

- God bless

"Face" the Music...

My first photo shoot for Tate Music Group!

Ok, so I totally did this shoot back in February, but never posted anything about it. Better late than never, eh?


This is Jeremiah aka "Kross". He's one of the coolest guys that I've had the privilege of working with at TMG. So humble and such a great Christ-follower. He is also an AWESOME rapper. In February, when he came down to track vocals for his album, I volunteered to do his photoshoot. I'm so glad that I did, because it was a great experience. We had fun walking around in Bricktown and Downtown OKC. There was lots of good conversation the whole time as well! Definitely one of my fave photo shoots I've ever done! Here are a few more photos!


Such a cool guy! Not only was I able to do his photo shoot in February. I also did his album artwork in March! I've had such a great time working with Jeremiah. He's just one of those people that makes sure you know that even though you're just doing your job, you're playing a very important role in his life and in his music. He's just so grateful, and I'm blessed to know him! Here is his cover:


So, I did the photos for him as well as his artwork. Well, now he has ordered an album trailer/commercial and there's a good chance that I could end up producing that as well! In his words, "You might as well do that too!" Haha. There may be a hat trick in the works!

- God bless

Working around the cast...

So, the other day while we were in our TMG cover concept meeting, one of my co-workers was talking about a band that she had to do photography for where one of the members had a broken arm and it was in a cast. Now, I'm sure everyone has seen what an arm cast looks like. They tend to use very bright colors on the wrapping... This makes it very difficult to appear in photos as well as just the awkwardness of a bulky think wrapped around some dudes arm... So, lets just say that there was a lot of "working around the cast". My co-worker had to take photos where only one side of this guy was showing, usually having him pressed up against one of the other members of the band to hide the arm that had the cast on it. This severely limits what a photographer can do. It takes away a lot of poses and the entire shoot has a sort of monotony to it...

I tell you that story to tell you this story, I was sitting there in the meeting thinking "Wow, that would totally suck to have to do a photo shoot with someone who has an arm in a cast..." I believe I may have even said that in the meeting. Well, I had a senior portrait shoot scheduled for that afternoon after I got off work. The whole cast thing never really crossed my mind again...

As I pull up to the spot where I was meeting my client, I saw him get out of his car. Lo and behold, he had a cast on his right arm. "Aw, man, what did you do!?" haha. (I used to work with this guy at Atwoods). Long story short, he had injured himself at work. All my ideas for the shoot totally went out the window... I had to gather my thoughts and figure out what I was going to do...

Well, I remembered the conversation we'd had in our concept meeting and proceeded to "work around the cast".

Overall, the shoot went fairly well! I got a lot of photos that may rank in some of the best I've ever done. We found a lot of cool places to use as backgrounds and that helped a ton. We were a little less diverse on poses, but it was evident from the start that this would be the case. haha

Here are a couple photos from the shoot...

I "shutter" at the thought...

Soooooo... I got a new camera!

It's a Nikon D300s professional DSLR. It's kinda different than my Nikon D80 that I've been using for quite some time now. The D300s doesn't have any automatic settings. It is all manual, so there are no shortcuts! haha

Probably the coolest thing about this camera is that is does HD video as well! Some might say, "Why don't you just get the D300 and then get a camcorder with HD?" Here's why: The D300s is only $200 more than the D300 and an HD camcorder would be over $1000 at the very least for a good one... PLUS, with the video on my D300s, I can change the ISO and shoot in really low light as well as using manual focus and zoom. This allows for more control with video. The only down side is that the built-in microphone doesn't record in the greatest quality, but they make a condenser mic that mounts where the flash would mount and plugs into a mic line-in port.

I am trying to line up a couple bands to shoot music videos for with my friend Chris. He has a DSLR that shoots HD video as well. We want to test em out and see what they can really do! I am also excited to be able to use my new camera for stuff at work! Not sure when/if I'll get another photo shoot for TMG, but you can bet that I'll be ready! haha

Also, I'm looking for opportunities to shoot some stock video for album trailers and possibly work on some HDR photos.

Here are some recent photos from my new camera!